“It's never been today before.”

“The people they had been last summer, the person she had been--Dicey guessed she'd never be afraid again, not the way she had been all summer. She had taken care of them all, sometimes well, sometimes badly. And they had covered the distances. For most of the summer, they had been unattached. Nobody knew who they were or what they were doing. It didn't matter what they did, as long as they all stayed together. Dicey remembered that feeling, of having things pretty much her own way. And she remembered the feelings of danger. It was a little bit like being a wild animal, she thought to herself. Dicey missed that wildness. She knew she would never have it again. And she missed the sense of Dicey Tillerman against the whole world and doing all right.”

“When a daring idea first crosses one's mind, if it is to be realized in the future it is often appealing. Then, as the time for its execution comes nearer, one begins to dread that which had once been anticipated. ”

“...When this map was made, there was only empty forest in the south," Gran told Birle."Not empty," Granda corrected her. "The forest is never empty.”

“ I felt that the world itself had changed and that it would never be steady under my feet again. I felt I understood nothing of people and had no way to learn. I felt fear. Until you have felt fear, you cannot imagine it. Once you have really felt it, you know that all your earlier nervousness was but a pale shadow.”

“But I'll tell you something else, too. Something I've learned, the hard way. I guess"—Gram laughed a little—"I'm the kind of person who has to learn things the hard way. You've got to hold on. Hold on to people. They can get away from you. It's not always going to be fun, but if you don't—hold on—then you lose them.”

“Mina wanted some of the kind of love Momma gave to her children, wheere love was the first and deepest thing, and the questions came later and the answers wouldn't matter much measured up against the love.”